Last week I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and spent Thursday morning over at the Ruth Bancroft Garden. It had been awhile since I had carved out a chunk of time to take my camera out with the sole purpose of creating images. The garden was beautiful and just what I needed to get my creative juices flowing.
A new Year
What if we could learn to appreciate and be content with our lives, exactly as they are today?
Starting A New Journey
“The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than growing with them.” Bernard M. Baruch
Embracing the imperfections in my life and feeling grateful to grow as a creature on this planet. Spending quiet, reflective time listening to my heart and the songs of the earth. Long shadows and little light do not stop my forward progress.
Circles
Week #13 - Appreciating the Sunshine
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”
Albert Einstein
The mystery of a simple tulip
Week #12 - Out and About at the Ruth Bancroft Garden
I never get tired of spending time at the Ruth Bancroft Garden. This morning was no exception. The combination of warm weather and rain helped to bring out the blooms throughout garden.
I enjoyed taking in the whole garden and have included some of the beautiful scenery from my visit.
Week #11 - Lensbaby Sol 45
I took out my Lensbaby Sol 45 this weekend and practiced taking images of some new succulents in my garden. I continue to struggle using the manual focus but I do think that I ended up with some nice shots.
WEEK #10 - A Hint of Spring
The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.
Honore de Balzac
Tulip bud
Week #9 - A Break in the Rain
After what seems like weeks of rain, we finally had a break this morning. I decided to take my camera outside for a welcomed change of scene.
The Woods
A flower which weathered the winter.
Sparkling succulents
Week #8 - Tulips and the Hope of Spring
Tulips from the farmers market
Week #7 - Hanging Out In Seattle
The long weekend provided me with the perfect excuse to hop on a plane and head out of town to the Seattle area to visit my son who recently moved up to the Pacific Northwest. Saturday was raining so we headed into Seattle to check out the Conservatory in Volunteer Park. The Conservatory is small but had a good collection of plants and flowers. They are offering free entrance through the month of February. If you are in the area I would recommend a visit.
Some images I took as I focused on lines, patterns, and shapes.
Lines on the leaves
Circular patterns
Circles and lines
Week #6 - Staying Amused on a Rainy Day
“Behind the cotton wool is a hidden pattern... the whole world is a work of art... there is no Shakespeare.... no Beethoven ... no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.”
Virginia Woolf
Market flowers on a rainy afternoon.
Week #5 The Simplicity of Nature
“Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy - your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.”
Annie Leibovitz
A study in black and white
Week #4 - Seeing Objects
“One should photograph objects, not only for what they are, but also for what else they are.”
Minor White
Week #3 - Finding Time For Creativity
“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
RIP Mary Oliver
I often feel like there is little time in my daily life to carve out space for creative endeavors. For me the best way to capture some time is to simply schedule a class . Whether a week long class in Paris or a half day class in my home town, making this commitment to my photography brings me great creative happiness.
More images from the Ruth Bancroft Garden, Walnut Creek, California
Just a tip.
Swirls and patterns
Dancing leaves
Week #2 - Late Afternoon At the Ruth Bancroft Garden
I spent a fun afternoon yesterday talking a photography class with John Ricca at the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, California. The garden covers 3.5 acres and houses a collection of succulents as well as drought-tolerant plants from around the world. Having just received my new macro lens,I decided to focus my time there on patterns and shapes. The images I am sharing this week are ones that I did in black and white. Next week I’ll share some that I took in color.
Shapes and lines
Graceful lines
Movement
Week #1 - Ode to Georgia O’Keeffe
The mission church at Rancho de Taos
“I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could ...I had created an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at ...not copy it”.
Georgia O’Keeffe
On Our Way To Taos
This year we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Taos , New Mexico. This has been on my list of “must dos” for years and 2018 ended up being the year that it came true. We met up with an old college friend and his girlfriend in Albuquerque. After spending a fun time day tripping around Albuquerque we headed north towards Taos. On our way we stopped at San Francisco De Asis Church located in Ranchos de Taos. This church has been made famous by artists like Georgia O’Keeffe and is one of the most photographed churches in the West. Of course I couldn’t resist the chance of taking a few photos of mine own.
Church Courtyard
Bell tower
Crosses
Towers and Crosses
The back view of the mission church
Paris Views
I just returned from two weeks in France. Since today is Bastille day I thought it would be fun tp share these images from Paris.
The view from our room.
Just another summer day at the Louvre.
Friends
The city at our feet.
The Louvre.
An Artist’s Studio
This week, while on vacation, I had the opportunity to visit the studio of NC Wyeth in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. The studio is part of the Brandywine Art Museum and can be visited by private tour. The studio has been kept just as it was when NC was painting before his death in a car accident. NC Wyeth was a prominent illustrator and muralist during the first half of the 20th century and the father of one of America’s most famous artist, Andrew Wyeth. Here are some images from this studio.
Looking down to the Wyeth house from the studio.
NC Wyeth’s painting smock.
Looking out the window.
Props
A picture of NC Wyeth and his desk.
The windows and scaffolding in the part of the studio where he worked on his murals.
A Colorado Wedding and Lessons Learned
This past October I attended a family wedding in Colorado. I’ve never thought seriously about shooting weddings but I was ready to take up the challenge of capturing the preparation of the festivities and the wedding itself, if only for my own skill development. The young couple getting married were excited that someone would be chronicling the days proceeding the wedding and I was happy to fill that void.
So with camera in hand I got to work. I was so pleased with the moments I captured and was excited to share them. The day of the wedding came and even though I wasn’t the wedding photographer I was hoping to keep practicing my skills with candid shots. As I got my gear ready I decided to change out my memory card. I tucked it away in a “safe place” and dashed off to the ceremony. The next day I packed up the hotel room getting ready to leave. What I didn’t realize was that my old memory card had somehow gotten swepted up in the room trash, never to be seen again. When I started to unpack from the trip it became painfully real that the card was gone. I frantically called the owner of the inn but the trash had all ready been picked up. It was gone and so were all of those special moments. I had my shots from the wedding but nothing from the days leading up to the main event.
Thinking about it now still makes me sad and frustrated. I have made changes in the way I carry my cards and camera when I travel so that I never lose anything that important again. Here are a few of the pictures from the wedding day - sure wish I could share the others.